


we to the gods

by halfcharacter



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ancestral Weapons, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Crests (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Fódlan Lore, Gen, Glenn is the elephant in the room for the entire Blue Lions run and also in this fic, Haircuts, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfcharacter/pseuds/halfcharacter
Summary: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,They kill us for their sport."-King LearOr: hair, and all its connotations.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Mercedes von Martritz, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 33
Kudos: 164





	1. burning quake.

**Author's Note:**

> This started life as a simple writing exercise to get into these character's heads and explore their backstories, and ended up as a fully fledged fic in itself. That's the power of the Blue Lions I guess. Go figure.
> 
> Some chapters will have particular content warnings, and those will be mentioned at the beginning of each chapter. I do not condone any of the awful things that happen in this fic to any of the characters.
> 
> Thank you to Dae, Oak and Elliott, who all helped beta this fic.

"As the geometrician, who endeavours  
To square the circle, and discovers not,  
By taking thought, the principle he wants,"  
  


* * *

  
Ingrid sits in her bedroom and carefully examines her reflection in the mirror Annette gave her. She sighs, putting it down and leaning forward, resting her head on her forearms.

Why were so many girls obsessed with this stuff? The makeup is… nice, she admits. It seems to bring out her eyes a bit more, even if the lines are a little uneven. But the obsession with it, she will never understand. The _extravagance._

She dusted a little of the red powder on her cheeks, as Mercedes had instructed. Had listened to Annette and carefully added a little black around her eyes with the smallest brush she had ever seen. Ingrid had been convinced at first she would snap the tiny wooden handle in two if she even tried to hold it.

Yet, here she is. Sufficiently… made up, as it were.

She looks over at her pile of books and notes on the other side of the desk, grimacing as she spots the scroll that lies on top them all, the broken wax seal of House Galatea mocking her.

Another marriage proposal from her father. Ingrid is starting to wonder if she should ask the Professor for help after all.

A knock at her door interrupts her thoughts, and she lifts her head. 

“Come in!”

Annette and Mercedes enter, both of them carrying small satchels. Mercedes smiles broadly at the sight of her, clapping her hands together in delight as Annette defly grabs the satchel that had slipped from her grasp in her delight.

“Oh _Ingrid_!” Mercedes cried. “You look lovely!”

“Do I?” Ingrid asks. “I mean, well, I hope so. I tried.”

Annette quickly deposits the two satchels on Ingrid’s desk, unrolling them to reveal yet more pots and tiny brushes and little pans of… stuff. Ingrid’s eyes widen.

“Is this all… makeup?” she asks.

“Yep!” Annette replies. “Mercie and I, well, we wanted to experiment, if that’s okay with you. You’ve done a pretty good job of the basics on yourself, but I wanted to do a full eye look and Mercie’s brought some cakes, and I thought we could make a date of it!”

Mercedes meanwhile has whipped out a cloth from somewhere and is busy unwrapping several small cakes. Ingrid’s eyes immediately go to the food, but Annette places her hand on her chin and moves her face, scrutinizing.

Ingrid feels less nervous striking down bandits than she does right now.

“Well, you seem to have picked up on kohl pretty well!” Comes the declaration, and Ingrid breathes an internal sigh of relief. “Just be careful not to put it all in your waterline, because then it just smudges and washes away. Generally, I find it’s better to put it in your lash line, and then blend. Also, don’t take this as criticism because it’s not, well… actually it sort of is, but it’s constructive criticism, but you need a re- _ally_ gentle hand with blush because you’re so pale and if you put too much red, you’re gonna look a bit like a clown, and nobody wants that!”

Ingrid blinks. Once. Twice.

“I’m not saying you look like a clown!” Annette cries. “It’s just… oh Goddess, I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

“Here,” Mercie interjects, pressing a small cake into Ingrid’s hand. “Eat this.”

Ingrid takes a large bite out of it, delighted to discover that it’s been baked with blueberries inside. She swallows, and then realizes both Annette and Mercedes are staring at her.

“So, what you’re trying to say is,” she begins, running her fingers over her lips to remove any crumbs, “I’m doing a good job, but I look like a harlequin?”

“No!” Annette yells, just as Mercedes says, “well not quite—”

“Goddess,” Ingrid sighs. “Why am I so bad at this?”

“You’re not bad,” Mercedes replies. “What Annie means is that you have natural skill. You’re doing really well for a beginner! But you’re going a little heavy handed, and with makeup you have to be very delicate. It’s not like fighting. You need finesse.”

“That’s all very well and good for you two,” Ingrid replies, taking a smaller bite out of the cake. “You’re mages. But I’m a knight. Hitting as hard as we can is… kind of the point, really.”

“This is why Dimitri is so bad at sewing,” Mercedes laments, as Annette begins working on her own cake. “It’s all brute force with you.”

Ingrid sighs. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for all of this.”

“Why don’t we try hair?” Annette suggests, and Mercedes’ eyes widen. “We could help you do your hair, and then perhaps that will help you transition onto makeup!”

Ingrid picks up her mirror and looks at herself in it. For as long as she can remember, she’s always worn her hair the same way. Long, in a simple twisted braid down her back. She cuts the pieces in front so they won’t get in her eyes when she’s flying. She’s never really thought about hair before, other than how to tie it up so it doesn’t bother her.

“I don’t really…” she begins. She starts again. “I don’t really know hair either. I’ve always just. Had it there? And tied it up so it doesn’t bother me.”

“Why haven’t you ever cut it then?” Mercedes asks. “If it’s more a hassle to you than anything?”

Ingrid grimaces. “Well… it’s… it’s because of my father, actually. I considered it, but when I brought it up to him he was adamantly against the idea. He said it would make me less attractive to… potential suitors.”

Annette and Mercedes both scowl at that, but Mercedes recovers quicker, dipping her head to take a bite of cake and putting on a pleasant smile.

“So I leave it long and just… tie it up so it doesn’t bother me when I’m fighting or training,” Ingrid finishes, and puts the rest of the cake into her mouth so she doesn’t need to keep talking.

“Well apart from the fact I think it’s completely ridiculous to say that to you,” Annette announces finally, “I think we can definitely work on teaching you some different ways to wear it. Then you can have both?”

Ingrid smiles.

“Thank you,” she says. “This is all so kind of you, really.”  
  


* * *

  
The war breaks out. The professor dies. Dimitri is executed, and Sylvain and Felix disappear, consumed by the fighting.

Ingrid has never felt so helpless. She doesn’t trust sending much correspondence in case it’s intercepted, so most of her updates come from listening in on her father’s war councils, as they make preparations to guard their southern flank in case the Alliance should make any moves.

She still has the mirror, and glances into it occasionally, but the makeup was forgotten on top of her desk at Garreg Mach. It hadn’t been important to grab at the time, during those frantic hours after the Professor disappeared and everyone had been scrambling to escape the Imperial Army and to recover their relics before the Empire could get to them.

Ingrid had grabbed Lúin and a few clothes, shoving them into her satchel. The mirror had been grabbed too, in her chaos, before Sylvain had burst in and told her that they needed to go _now_ , and she had run out after him, leaving everything else behind.

In some ways, the mirror is her last link to Garreg Mach, and to Mercedes, and to Annette, whom Ingrid hasn’t seen for years. She hopes desperately they are alive, wherever they are.

The war creeps ever closer, and her father stops mentioning suitors to her. This is good, because she’s tired of suitors. She’s tired of death and famine and loss. She misses Dimitri, Sylvain, and Felix. Ashe, who had so many dreams of becoming a knight with her. Annette and Mercedes and Dorothea, who stood up for her and helped her escape from her would-be kidnapper. She misses Glenn.

She cuts her hair, because she’s a Pegasus Knight, and her looks don’t matter. They never really did.


	2. ruined sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> \- Self-worth/self-hatred issues  
> \- Brief suicidal thoughts  
> \- Canonical child abuse  
> \- Implied/referenced child sexual abuse  
> \- Sex as a self-harm mechanism

"Even such was I at that new apparition;  
I wished to see how the image to the circle  
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;"  
  


* * *

  
There’s a fire that always burns in the middle of House Gautier’s meeting hall. It serves both a mundane and a ritual purpose. In the practical sense, it works to stave off the extreme cold that seeps into the bone and causes all the nobles and servants alike to shiver as they move through the stone corridors and rooms of the castle. Symbolically, it represents Gautier and its martial prowess. The fire of the north. If the flame were ever to go out, it would mean House Gautier would have fallen. And if House Gautier ever falls, so too would Faerghus.

The territory of House Gautier was once Sreng. Sylvain learns this quite young, during a lesson that he pretends not to be paying any attention to. It is reflected in the culture of Gautier: wilder and harsher than its peers, more warlike. In its people too, who often bear hair of auburn and burnt copper. Bright lights in the cold, wind-whipped deserts of Gautier and Sreng.

“You are the son of the north,” Sylvain’s mother had told him one evening, as he sat on her lap sipping spiced apple cider. “Fire-fierce and heir of a great lineage. It will be your duty and your privilege to guard Faerghus from the invaders. Gautier is the backbone of Faerghus, and you will be its head.”

Sylvain had nodded silently and fished out a piece of cider-soaked apple from his mug.

It is a few years after that Sylvain learns that nobles and commoners alike from other areas of the kingdom find red hair very attractive. They love to run their hands through it as they kiss him, pull it to the point of pain when they ride him or fuck him, and he leans back and grins, asks them _do you like it, baby?_ as they groan _yes_ and fuck him harder.

It makes him stand out against his classmates at Garreg Mach. Everyone notices when he enters a room. Sylvain Jose Gautier, from the kingdom of Faerghus. Heir to House Gautier. Fire of the north.

Indefensibly worthless.

Miklan has red hair, Sylvain notices, when he is old enough to recognize things about people and still too young to know how not to put his foot in his mouth. _Miklan has red hair too,_ he tells his mother. _And he’s my older brother. Why am I the heir?_

His mother had grown sad at that, pulling her second son close to her chest, the way she always used to do before Sylvain had grown up and stopped holding her for fear of sullying his mother with his disgusting body.

“Miklan is…” she had tried to explain, but Sylvain hadn’t really understood it at the time. “Miklan is a son of Gautier. But he is not _the_ son of Gautier. He cannot be.”

Confused, Sylvain had gone to the library the next day to read through the family annuals. The history of House Gautier condensed into a thick tome. The earliest pages were a blur and not well documented, only stating that there was descendance from Gautier himself, but how exactly the family tree was connected was still mostly unknown. He skims through the pages, glancing at the names, the brief physical descriptions given, details of their crest.

Major crest, major crest, minor crest, major crest. Over time, the instances of major crests manifesting had whittled down to rare occurrences. There was never any mention of a member without a crest, unless it was a spouse who had married into the family and produced a crest-bearing heir. 

Surely that was not logically possible. There must have been some crest-less children born, even if they never inherited.

Confused, Sylvain had flipped to the last few pages, where his mother and father’s names were written in dark blue ink.

Underneath them was his name.

_Sylvain Jose Gautier. Born on the Fifth Day of the Garland Moon, Imperial Year 1160. Red of Hair._

Miklan wasn’t there.

As far as the family history went, Miklan didn’t even _exist.  
  
_

* * *

  
As he lies in the dark depths of the well, he thinks of the irony. He knows how to float, and to swim, but he knows the cold will kill him eventually regardless. The fire of the north, extinguished by freezing water. It’s absurdly fitting, honestly.

Sylvain closes his eyes and thinks of what he would have done had the roles been reversed. If he had been the crest-less one, pushing his brother into a well and leaving him for dead. What would he feel, knowing Miklan was floating there, slowly dying? Would he even care?

He’s slipping into unconsciousness when Glenn finds him, yelling at Felix to find the Margrave and for Dimitri to help him lower a rope.

 _So close_ , he thinks dully. _I was so close._

Here is the thing about flame, his tutor tells him, before one day he is caught trying to kiss Sylvain and is quietly expelled from the territory in disgrace. Fire requires air to sustain itself. Smother a flame, and it will burn out.

“Don’t die out here,” Glenn hisses at him, as he pulls Sylvain from the freezing snowbank on top of the mountain, Sylvain gasping for air and grabbing onto the furs of Glenn’s cloak. “Don’t die like this.”

“Don’t _die_ like this,” Felix spits, as Sylvain lies bleeding from his hairline on the gory patch of damp earth, the roar of the Imperial Army so close behind them. “Don’t die on me, you fool. You promised we would die together. You _promised me_.”

“I know,” Sylvain breathes through bloodied gritted teeth, as Mercedes rushes over to examine him. “I know, Felix.”

_But I was so close._

Miklan died. Sylvain killed him. Drove his lance through his gut, and then Miklan had _come back._ A rampaging beast.

Maybe that’s how the people of Sreng see him, Sylvain thinks, as the Lance of Ruin twitches and shudders in the corner of his bedroom. The fire of the north. House Gautier. A house of beasts.  
  


* * *

  
She’s pulling his hair so hard Sylvain imagines there’s going to be clumps of it on his pillow come dawn—tufts of bright red hair and blood that’re indistinguishable from each other on the linen. She’s pulling his hair, and it hurts like hell, but Sylvain doesn’t really love her either, so he lets her do what she wants and he grins and bears it until they both finish.

She doesn’t love him. She wants his baby, nothing more. She doesn’t want him. He’s indefensibly worthless, after all.

 _They want me to protect Faerghus_ , he thinks in the dark stillness of his bedroom, as the girl cuddles up to him in a mockery of intimacy. _They want me to protect Faerghus, and yet they never protected either of us._

The red hair of Gautier is the colour of fire, he thinks. But it’s also the colour of blood. Blood and flame. The eternal flames, where Miklan will be waiting for him.

_Burn until we meet again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain is... my favourite character in this entire game. He's endearingly and devastatingly complex, hiding so much self hatred and cynicism underneath the facade he shows people. He _hates_ crests, he hates the current system of nobility, and engages in some really awful behaviour as a coping mechanism that hurts both himself and countless other people around him. I believe it is not so subtly implied that Sylvain is not just a survivor of physical and mental child abuse, but also childhood sexual abuse, which influences how I depict him. Post-timeskip, he very much embraces his position as a bringer of death and seems to be a death-seeker himself, implying that he believes absolutely that he is going to hell. Also, the Crest of Gautier corresponds to the Death card of the major arcana.
> 
> I have far too many headcanons about House Gautier, Gautier territory, and their relationship with Sreng.


	3. aegis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> \- Canonical character death (you get no points for guessing who)  
> \- Grieving

"But my own wings were not enough for this,  
Had it not been that then my mind there smote  
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish."  
  


* * *

  
Children of the House of Fraldarius don’t cut their hair.

This is the wisdom imparted by Rodrigue one bright morning, as Felix grumbles and grimaces and pulls away from the comb attempting to work its way through the stiff, tangled, crusty mess he’d returned home with. Glenn winces in sympathy from the doorway as the nursemaid sighs, gently removes Felix’s hand from where he’s rubbing his sore scalp, and resumes patiently combing.

“I don’t see why I can’t just cut it,” Felix had wailed, bright eyes rapidly filling with tears, as they were often wont to do. “I don’t want this stupid hair anyway; it just gets stuck on things! Stuck on things, and—and— _full_ of things!”

Rodrigue sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. They had been exploring through some of the fields around the castle village, Glenn had summarized sheepishly, and then the prince had spotted a wild patch of brambles and blackberries, and in their attempt to rush over and collect some of the fruit, Ingrid had accidentally pushed Felix off the stile he had been clambering over. Felix had landed, Glenn finished, almost triumphantly, into a large steaming puddle of mud and other… substances of dubious origin.

Rodrigue had laughed at that, full-bellied and hearty, and Glenn had grinned in response, sharp white teeth flashing in the bright morning light as Felix had rounded the corner of the stable wall and come into view, head to toe covered in mud, with Prince Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain all attempting unsuccessfully to hide behind his drastically smaller frame.

All five of them had been quickly shown to the bathhouse (no one had emerged completely unscathed from the spray that heralded Felix’s demise into the mud and dung). Then, Rodrigue had called for Felix’s nursemaid to bring her combs and hair oils, and the torturous process had begun of attempting to comb out all of the sticky pine sap and other dirt that hadn’t been washed away by water and soap-wort.

“In our family,” Rodrigue continues, “hair is very important. I know this is painful now, but this pain is fleeting. House Fraldarius has special privileges and duties in the Kingdom. One of them is to protect the king. Our hair is a symbol of that honour and duty.”

Felix looks up into his father’s eyes.

“So you’ll never cut it?” he asks, eyes bright and wide. “Not _ever_?”

Behind him, the nursemaid silently mutters a prayer to the Goddess.

Rodrigue smiles, almost sadly. “Oh my sons,” he says, and Glenn pushes off from the doorway and begins to walk further into the room, “if I ever have cause to cut my hair, it shall be because I have failed.”  
  


* * *

  
Children of the House of Fraldarius don’t cut their hair. It has been this way since the time of Kyphon, who rode into battle alongside Loog, hair a wine-dark banner streaming behind him in the wind as he swung his sword and defended his king. Hair is important to the House of Fraldarius. A long, unbroken line of hair symbolizes devotion, as well as strength and skill. And in Faerghus, where the winters are cold and dark and sometimes stretch on for an age, strength is valued above all else.  
  


* * *

  
Glenn dies. Ingrid locks herself in her room for weeks, neglecting her horse, who whinnies in her stable sadly, asking for her rider. Dimitri is nowhere to be seen. Faerghus falls into a state of civil strife and turmoil.

The state funeral is a mess, heavy fog and rain threatening to extinguish the funeral pyres. Felix shivers in the damp, frigid air sinking into his bones as he stands before King Lambert’s burning corpse, choking on the acrid smell. The court mages have to fuel the fire themselves to keep it going, and Felix stands there silently, watching the black column of smoke drift up towards the sky. Sylvain stands a few feet behind him, as is proper according to his station, holding Ingrid tightly in his arms as she wails uncontrollably, smashing her fists against his broad chest. He stands there and takes it, as he always does, running a hand down her limp wet hair as she spits and curses the traitors of Duscur.

The months pass by slowly after that.

Felix’s mother puts on a heavy black lace shawl, and refuses to take it off even after the mourning period ends. She spends hours in prayer in the chapel, and in the family crypt, kneeling by Glenn’s empty grave. She doesn’t speak at dinner, instead staring down at her plate in misery. Rufus steps up as regent, and Margrave Gautier begins war councils and preparations in Duscur, the Lance of Ruin ever by his side.

One morning, Felix bumps into his father in the hallway. Rodrigue is wearing his heavy dark velvets, sword and dagger fastened at his hip. His hair, once a proud wash of purple down his back, now sits at shoulder-length, cropped raggedly and uneven. He did it himself at King Lambert’s funeral, silently hacking away at it in front of all the nobility. Felix knows he will now wear it like this for the rest of his days. A public and overt display of shame.

_“If I ever have cause to cut my hair, it shall be because I have failed.”_

Glenn’s body was never recovered, lost to the mud and blood of Duscur, but the effigy of him carved atop his stone sarcophagus depicts him in full plate, sword clutched in his hands and long hair braided, falling gently over his left shoulder.

Glenn didn’t fail. Glenn died like a _true knight._

Goddess, Felix hates it. He turns away from the pathetic sight of his father and heads to the training grounds. He trains. The simmering boil of his crest hisses underneath his skin, drawn out by his grief and fury. A few smashed dummies later, and he screams in rage. He hates this. He _hates this._

His restless feet take him to Glenn’s quarters, which have been kept sealed ever since Duscur. Two guards stand at the door, but when they see Felix they move aside, wordlessly bowing their heads in deference.

After all, who would now stop him? He is the new heir of House Fraldarius. He bears a major crest. He will be Prince— _King_ Dimitri’s sword and shield. Glenn was born for Dimitri, but Glenn is dead.

The heavy oak door swings shut behind him, and Felix takes a moment to gaze at the empty expanse of his bedroom. The bed has been made, Felix notices, and the surface of his writing desk has been polished. All his books have been placed carefully on the shelves, and his personal effects and hair adornments have been neatly packed away.

It’s not how he left it, because Felix _knows_ his brother and knows Glenn’s room was perpetually a mess—scrolls and silver hairpieces dumped haphazardly on the desk, half-empty bottles of fine wine left on the nightstand next to small plates of cheeses and breads after a night spent burning his way through the castle’s candle stock in an attempt to finish reading a particular treatise on historical cavalry manoeuvres. _That_ was Glenn.

This room isn’t his. It belongs to a stranger.

Glenn’s sword lies on top of the sarcophagi in the Fraldarius family crypt, but his armour is in here, hanging on its stand. As Felix steps closer to it, reaching out one hand to touch its cold, dull surface, he notices it is small in frame. Why had he never noticed that before?

Glenn had never seemed small in Felix’s childish memories, or when he was clad in plate from head to toe, but here is the truth of it now. Glenn had been a small man, whose wicked tongue and wit made you think he was a giant. Glenn had been a great man.

Felix can see himself dimly in the reflection of the metal, long purple hair falling free over his shoulders. 

_Glenn died like a true knight._

They’ve taken his brother and made him into a _coward_.

Felix snarls and pulls his dagger from his hip. He grasps the thick length of his hair, wrapping it tightly around his other hand, pulling it hard enough to feel the prick of tears at the corners of his eyes.

He could do it now, he thinks. He could cut it too. Who could stop him? His failure of a father? The empty grave of his brother?

His bones aren’t even there. Glenn is gone. He went and died and everyone smothered his memory in falsehoods, creating their fanciful stories of chivalry and knighthood to try and make his death _mean_ something while they wallow in their own self-pity.

He’s sick of it. He’s sick of everyone talking about honour and duty and _failure_.

 _I refuse to fail_ , he thinks. _I refuse to be their martyr._

But as he brings the blade up to cut, he falters. Felix stops, and realizes the hand holding the dagger is shaking. His entire body is shaking, with grief and rage and something else he doesn’t want to admit to himself. Cursing, Felix throws his dagger onto the hard, stone floor with a loud metallic clatter and storms away. 

When Ingrid and Sylvain next see him, Felix’s hair is tied up. He will never wear it loose again.

He cuts it only one time in his life, when he hears word of the execution of a friend he couldn’t save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After seeing a comic on twitter about Glenn being like "INFINITE COSMIC POWER itty bitty living space" I refuse to believe that the House of Fraldarius produces anything but tiny people full of power and rage. Also, intsys give me Glenn with a long thick Petra braid or I revolt.
> 
> The alternate title for this chapter was Felix Hugo Fraldarius Attempts To Emulate Mulan But Gets Performance Anxiety


	4. atrocity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> \- Severe mental illness and PTSD  
> \- Gore (including briefly but not explicitly mentioned eye gore)  
> \- Sexual assault in a prison context  
> \- Implied/reference prostitution  
> \- Violence
> 
> recommended listening music [here](https://youtu.be/r5uYB9T_GlY) for ultimate sadness.

"Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:  
But now was turning my desire and will,  
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars."  
  


* * *

  
He’s dozing fitfully when he hears it: the sound of footsteps upon the stone steps. Cautious, steady. Unlikely to be more Imperial soldiers.

Dimitri shifts slightly, easing his lance more firmly into his grip. His fingers curl around the smooth wood, leather creaking. He’s ready for whatever it is. Whatever may come, he is prepared.

He isn’t prepared to see the Professor’s face, ageless and serene, and a hand reaching out for him the way it used to do in his dreams.  
  


* * *

  
When he had first seen Edelgard again at the monastery, he’d repressed the urge to run up to her and pull her into his arms.

“El!” he would have cried, giddy with delight. “It’s so good to see you again!”

But El is now Edelgard, her hair is bone white, and she does not recognize him.

At first, Dimitri runs through the pros and cons of telling her who he is. A relationship rekindled: another chance for both of them to be friends, the way they had been for that short, blessed time in Faerghus. Before she had vanished from his life, and the only thing she had to remember him by was that Goddess-cursed dagger.

He wonders idly if she kept it. Maybe she had for a time. More likely it was taken away from her by a well-meaning adult.

Goddess, what had he been thinking? A _dagger_. Sylvain still teases him about it.

But it had been a gift given in the spirit of friendship. He wanted her to be able to cut her own path, after all. And after a few moons of watching her from afar, Dimitri finally realizes she has. She’s an adult now, and she leads her house with the kind of confidence that Dimitri wishes he had.

He doesn’t approach her. Maybe if he had, he could have stopped her before it had become too late.  
  


* * *

  
His hair begins to grow in prison. Afraid of his inordinate strength, they’ve chained him by both wrists and ankles to the wall with magically enhanced shackles that sap him of vigor and leave him dizzy and weak. Dimitri pulls and pulls against them, cursing and screaming in rage, and though he can see the eyes of his jailors widen in fear behind the bars, the shackles do not budge. At the back of his mouth he can taste the sharp, pine-needle taste of magic. It tastes cold and clinical; the way Mercedes’ and Annette’s faith magic never did.

The first time he had been chained, they underestimated him. He’d pulled the chains free from the stone wall in half an hour and had been halfway through bending the iron bars of his cell into a shape he could squeeze through when a mage with a heavy dark veil covering their face had laid him flat on his back with a fireball. The headache had lasted for days, brain rattling around in his skull as he shuddered and wheezed and wept.

Cornelia comes to visit him once. She is dressed to the nines, as though preparing for a ball and not seeing the disgraced prince of Faerghus in his jail cell: makeup carefully applied, hair twisted up in an elaborate knot, jewellery shining silver against her skin. In comparison, his hair is matted with sweat and filth and blood, and the rest of him is no better, his old academy uniform now nothing more than tattered rags. He shakes his head in irritation to get the mess of hair out of his eyes, and she laughs, amused at his antics.

“How like a dog you are!” she exclaims, clapping both hands together.

Moving as close as she dares, she slowly reaches out one gloved hand to carefully trace over his bare collarbone. Dimitri snarls and pulls away from her touch. He does not want this woman touching him. He does not want her anywhere near him.

“Get away from me, _witch_ ,” he hisses. Cornelia smiles.

“You know,” she begins, folding her arms underneath her bosom as if to prop her chest up. If she’s not careful, Dimitri thinks hysterically, she’s going to pop right out of that ridiculous dress of hers. “Your father was quite the specimen too. Golden hair, thick arms, powerful legs… he was strong too. I’d never met anyone as strong as him. Truly a lion of Blaiddyd.” There’s a somewhat faraway look in her eye, as if recalling a very pleasant memory, and Dimitri is struck with a sudden nausea wondering if she and his father had ever… been intimate. Goddess, let it not be so.

She sighs wistfully, and he narrows his eyes in irritation.

“Is there a point to this?” he asks. “If you’ve come to insult me or speak crass falsehoods of my father, leave.”

Cornelia’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Your father was a lion. So broad and strong and true. But you…” she reaches out to caress Dimitri’s face, and he lunges at her, teeth bared. She steps back just in time to avoid the snap of his jaw, and he jerks in his chains as they cut into his wrists. Blood begins welling underneath the frigid metal, skin rubbed raw, and she laughs again, cold and dark.

Then she hits him with a spell. Dimitri cries out as the cruel curl of lightning flickers like wildfire up the unprotected skin of his torso and arms, the metal of his shackles vibrating and sizzling against his bloodied skin. It _burns_. Worse than the flaming nightmare they had ran down to protect Ingrid from her suitor, worse than the time Annette had misfired and hit him with a fireball instead of the target.

Worse than the fires of Duscur.

Through the haze of pain he can see Cornelia’s grin; the whites of her eyes sharp and bright as the current runs through her gloved hands and down his skin. He screams and screams and screams, and after what seems like an eternity, she stops.

He hangs limply in his chains, gazing up at her weakly from underneath his hair. He is powerless, he realizes in that moment. Powerless to stop her as she closes the distance between them and grabs him between his legs. He whimpers as Cornelia tightens her grip painfully, pulling and twisting in a mockery of an intimate embrace.

She releases her grip and shoves him against the prison wall. Dimitri goes easily, biting straight through his lower lip as his head smacks against the stone.

“But you’re not a lion at all,” she continues, seemingly unfazed. “You’re more like a wolf. A rabid cur, chained up for its own good.”  
  


* * *

  
Dedue dies, and Dimitri escapes from jail. He wanders from town to town, stealing and killing as he goes. He begins hearing stories of the mad wolf of Faerghus, a shadow that comes in the night to eat children and murder young virgins. He ignores it all. Let them spew their lies. It doesn’t matter. 

All that matters is reaching Enbarr, and killing her. Edelgard. _El._

He sleeps rough and forgets how to cook. How to wash. How to behave like a normal person. He does not want to be found, either by the Empire or by their Faerghus traitors.

Occasionally he tries to hitch rides on merchant or mercenary caravans to save the soles of his feet, blistered and constantly aching. He is good at intimidation. He is good at killing. But he is less good at negotiating with people, and more often than not, his efforts fail miserably. So he gives up, walking through forests and over mountain paths, boots a mere memory of leather, slick with blood.

Then he hits an imperial blockade, and hiding within a caravan becomes his only option. He ditches his leathery rags again, and steals a shirt and trousers from an unattended clothesline. He poses as a commoner, looking for work and a way to escape the war. It’s a believable story.

The merchant captain takes one look at him and laughs.

“Maybe if you wash first, I’d consider it,” he says, eyes wandering up and down Dimitri’s body in a way that he has begun to recognize with a sick churn of his gut. “But you… no offense, but I’ve seen and smelled better in a public privy. Make me a better offer, son, and we’ll see about your passage.” He laughs and wanders off to re-join his caravan.

Dimitri crouches by the side of a river and looks at his reflection. He is disgusting. He cannot smell himself anymore, but he can imagine what kind of odour he emanates. It has now become imperative that he clean himself, so that he can… make a better offer. It is what must be done.

But is this how he wants to face her? Is this how he wants to be?

 _Does it matter what you do?_ asks Glenn from beside him. Dimitri turns to face him. Two trails of dried blood lead down from his empty eye sockets and pool at the corners of his slashed mouth. _All that matters is that you kill her. The end goal is in sight. The means are irrelevant._

Dimitri frowns down at the water. He strips off his newly acquired clothes, jumps into the river, and discovers that he has not completely forgotten how to wash after all.

The mercenary captain is considerably easier to persuade after that, and as Dimitri lies there in the dark, bare back itchy with dried sweat against the rough linen of the cot, he tries to sleep. 

He sees his father and stepmother. He approaches eagerly, but when they see it is him, their faces show only disappointment.

“My son,” Father says, in that tone of voice Dimitri had always hated, “what have you become?”

“Father,” Dimitri replies, and his voice cracks in the way it hasn’t since he was thirteen. “Father, I…”

“You are a king,” Lambert replies sadly. “You are the King of Lions. Why are you wasting your time here when you should be avenging me?”

“I’m trying. Father, I’m trying, I’m sorry I… I needed to get past the blockade.”

Patricia steps closer and takes Lambert’s arm in hers. “Let’s go,” she says. “He has forsaken his vow. He has given up on his revenge to degrade and debase himself.”

“No!” Dimitri shouts, reaching for them. “Please, no, I—I didn’t _want_ to. I couldn’t think of any other way. The Imperial Army, they—”

“There is always a way,” says Glenn, as he steps into the dream. “I died for my king. I died in Duscur. My bones lie in Duscur dirt and here you are. I died for you and I want _blood_.”

Dimitri wakes up with a gasp, reaching out for ghosts. Beside him, the mercenary captain grunts and rolls over, arm flinging over Dimitri’s bare skin.

Dimitri snaps his neck and steals his sword and coin purse, slipping away into the darkness.  
  


* * *

  
The ghosts do not let him rest. They do not let him sleep. Dimitri pulls at his hair, screaming wordlessly. He looks down at the ruined mess on his hands, vision hazy, begging them to let him be. His dagger is stained red with blood.

His father and stepmother stare at him, wordlessly. Glenn’s corpse smiles, and his smile is full of broken, bloodied teeth.

“I will kill her,” he pleads with them, “I _will_. Let me _rest_.”

He hacks off his hair. It grows back. It always grows back. Eventually, he stops bothering.  
  


* * *

  
Then the ghost of the Professor appears, pale hair gleaming in the morning light that seems to emanate from them. They look like one of the stained-glass windows of the Goddess in the cathedral at Garreg Mach. Dimitri used to stare at it during choir practice, imagining that he could see familiarity in her eyes.

He always knew they would eventually start haunting him as well.  
  


* * *

  
He cuts them down. There are always more. He cuts them down, as well.

Felix has returned. So too has Ingrid, and Sylvain, and Gilbert. Even Ashe and Annette and Mercedes are here. It is good. He will use them while they are useful, and dispose of them when they are not.

By some twist of fate, the Professor turned out not to be a ghost after all. But there is one ghost that Dimitri fears most, one that hasn’t appeared yet. It is only a matter of time, but as each sleepless night passes and he does not see his face, Dimitri begins to worry that Dedue will not bother to haunt him after all.

After all, Dedue pledged himself to a future king. Dimitri is not a king, and exists only for revenge.  
  


* * *

  
They move to the Great Bridge of Myrddin. And there he is, standing there immovable and unshakeable.

It is as if nothing had ever happened, like Dimitri hadn’t lost himself in that jail cell, consumed by the flames of Cornelia’s depravity. Like Dedue hadn’t seen him, debased and filthy, stooping down to wipe away sweat and blood from his face, pressing a lance into his battered hands.

Like Dimitri hadn’t killed him.  
  


* * *

  
The night after Rodrigue dies, Dimitri approaches Dedue and asks sheepishly if he will help him wash. It is something Dedue used to help him with back at the monastery, when Dimitri had awoken crying from nightmares, skin damp with sweat and occasionally blood, when he had pierced himself with his fingernails. Despite the fact Dimitri always locked his bedroom door, Dedue would always ask Ashe to pick it after everyone else had retired. Then, when he heard the sound of his screaming, Dedue would let himself into Dimitri’s room. He would pick up his prince and take him down to the bathing quarters, combing through his hair and helping him through the ministrations of washing until Dimitri had come back to himself.

But this is something they have not done for years, and Dimitri is afraid Dedue will say no. There is something between them now, Dimitri feels, that is pulling them apart. He can no more ask this of Dedue than he can ask Felix or Sylvain or Ingrid to play with him the way they used to when they were young. Before they all grew up too fast.

Dedue takes one look at him, eyes unreadable. Then he turns his back and begins walking away. Dimitri feels his heart sink, his suspicions confirmed. Finally, he has asked too much. He has pushed for too much. 

Dedue stops walking and turns around. “Are you coming?” he asks simply. “The bathhouse is this way.”

Stunned into silence, Dimitri follows.

It is as if nothing had ever changed. Dedue unties his hair and lets it fall around his shoulders, then helps Dimitri undress. Dimitri sits down on one of the small stools and idly runs his fingers through his tangled hair, wincing as it snags and pulls.

Dedue pulls a wide toothed comb from his pack and sits down behind his king. “I will start with the wide-toothed one,” he says, “before moving up to the fine tangles.” Dimitri nods. As Dedue begins to work his way through the hair, he looks up from where he’s been staring at the tiled floor. They are still there, the ghosts. He thinks they will always be there.

But they are not clamouring for blood today. Today, they are still.

“Dedue, I—” his voice breaks, and he clears his throat and starts again. “What colour is it?”

“It?” Dedue prompts. “It’s golden, of course.”

“Like a lion?”

Dedue pauses. “You will be a great king,” he replies, answering Dimitri’s unspoken question. “Do not doubt yourself. We are all here because we believe it to be so.”

Dimitri opens his mouth to interrupt but Dedue continues.

“You will be the king Fódlan needs. I know this, because you are a good man.” 

“Thank you Dedue,” Dimitri says, reaching up his hand to wipe away the tears that have spilled over. “Thank you.”

“It is the truth, your highness. And if you ever need me to tell you again, I will do so gladly. Always.”

“Please do not call me that,” Dimitri whispers. “I have disgraced myself so much. I have disgraced everyone so much.”

“And yet they are still by your side,” Dedue replies. “As am I. Felix told you to apologize with your actions, and this is what you are doing. They are by your side because they believe in your cause, and in you. They are your friends.”

“And what about you?” Dimitri asks, twisting on his stool to face his vassal.

Dedue takes Dimitri’s face in his hands. They are so warm, Dimitri notices. The hands of a warrior and a gardener both. Someone who lives to protect and to prune. The plant cannot continue to grow unless the dead parts are first cut away.

“I am your vassal,” Dedue says. “And in the new world you will build, I will also be your friend.”

“My friend,” Dimitri echoes.

“My friend,” Dedue repeats. His eyes do not leave Dimitri’s face. “My friend. Dimitri.”  
  


* * *

  
He strikes Edelgard down, and she lies still. The dagger aches where it is embedded in his chest, but he barely feels it.

The Professor takes his hand, and he walks away.

That night, he is awoken by the sensation of somebody lying down next to him. He jerks away in fear, hand going automatically for the dagger underneath his pillow that is no longer there, but a strong, firm hand clasps around his and squeezes it tightly.

“It’s just us,” Sylvain whispers. “It’s just us.”

“Dedue—” Dimitri begins, struggling to sit up on his cot.

“Dedue let us in,” comes Felix’s voice. “He knows you’re safe.”

“Why are you here?” Dimitri asks.

“Because we missed you,” Ingrid replies simply. “Lie down.”

Dimitri acquiesces, sinking back down onto the furs. He feels Sylvain’s broad, tall frame slot up against his right side, and then Ingrid’s smaller frame to his left. There is the sound of boots being dropped to the floor, and then Felix crawls up onto the cot the way he always used to do when they would nap like this as children, ever the smallest one of the four.

“Move over,” he hisses, and Dimitri isn’t sure who it’s aimed at. Then Sylvain shifts with a loud audible sigh, and Felix slots himself snugly between them, like he’s destined to be there.

He is, Dimitri abruptly realises. They all are. Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix and himself. They were always meant to be together. A king, his knight, his fire, and his shield.

In the morning, Dimitri opens his eye, arms still clutched tightly around his three best friends. Glenn is standing in the doorway to his tent. His face is bright and whole, and he is smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for coming on this little journey with me!! I appreciate you all so much. 
> 
> Come hang out and yell with me about fe3h on twitter at [halfcharacter](https://twitter.com/halfcharacter) !


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